Courts Conflicted on Issue of Cell-Phone Search, What a Cell Phone Actually Is

Cell phones are having a constitutional moment, according to an article in The New York Times, arbiter of moments both constitutional and trendy. More specifically, they are the subject of a heated disagreement in America’s courts: some think police need a warrant to access information on suspects’ cell phones; others support the approach of your parents, who just happenedto see your phone buzzing and read your text message because they thought maybe there was something urgently wrong.

More important, this debate has led our nation’s judges to wax poetic about the definition of a cell phone itself.

PerTheNew York Times:

Judges across the nation have written tomes about whether a cellphone is akin to a “container” — like a suitcase stuffed with marijuana that the police might find in the trunk of a car — or whether, as the judge in the Rhode Island murder case suggested, it is more comparable to a face-to-face conversation.

In addition to the rogue Rhode Island court’s wild suggestion, an Ohio court observed that, “unlike a piece of paper that might be stuffed inside a suspect’s pocket and can be confiscated during an arrest, a cellphone may hold ‘large amounts of private data.’”

Though VF Daily does not have access to the tomes of judicial literature on the “Container Theory” at this time, local judges have asked that several more crucial questions about cell phones be answered before the Senate committee this upcoming Thursday, which will consider “limited changes” to the Electronic Communications Privacy act, a law written in 1986, when beepers and fax machines were cool.

Their submissions below:

When the Ohio court says "private data," are they referring to the electronic storage of communication for purposes of backup protection or a transfer containing a human voice?

Do a suspect's general digital actions, such as text messages or Facebook.com posts, constitute a face-to-face conversation if no one responds to said text messages or posts?

For instance, I’ve texted my daughter several times about what she’d like for dinner, but she has not responded. Can this be considered a conversation?

Contrary to the Ohio court, I read somewhere that they make phones that are small enough to fit in your pocket. Where can I purchase said device?

How do I switch my phone to vibrate while I’m in court?

The text on my phone is illegibly small. How do I make it bigger?

Recently I received a message which contained a photo. Is my phone broken?

During a digital exchange, my colleague used the term “YOLO." What is the meaning of this term?

I set an alarm for my casserole two weeks ago and it continues to beep every evening. Please advise on how to terminate.